DRESDEN, DENMARK AND OTHER JACKASSERY

My level of France retardation spiked this past week with a series of events that left me googling "loss of brain cells"....

ACT I
DRESDEN, DENMARK
French class, take 3.
After two disappointing rounds at Alliance Francaise last year, I was able to sign up for super cheap French classes through the mairie. I have learned not to cheat my way through placement tests and I showed up the first day to learn that after a year in Paris, I am now qualified for level 2. YES! I can say all sorts of things now but my major problem remains...I still don't understand one word anyone says to me. I am 100% convinced now that I am either an asshole who doesn't listen or I actually do have a learning disability. My class is held in an elementary school and I felt the butterflies as I squeezed myself into the tiny, tiny desk and looked around at the 30 other adults. I fought a sudden urge to yell "CAN WE ALL GET THIS OVER WITH!!? MY NAME IS DANA AND I JUST WANT YOU PEOPLE TO LIKE ME, OOOKAAAY??!!" I add "Tourette's" to my internal "to google" list and I wondered if anyone else is afflicted with childhood holdover anxiety disorder.

Our first lesson is to turn to our neighbor and interview them. Where he/she is from, what they do, how long they have been here, etc. After your neighbor interviews you, you are to present each other to the rest of the class. OK, no sweat, I think. I turn to my neighbor....Jonas.
Where are you from?
Germany.
I write DENMARK.
What city?
Dresden.
Can you spell that, please?
D-R-E-S-D-E-N
OH! DRESDEN, DENMARK I carefully write.
OK, age?
26.
24? No, 26 he corrects.
Oh, right. I knew that one. (Note to self: brush up on numbers 1-10)
OK. What do you do?
Physicien, he says.
DOCTOR, I write. Wow, they must have really super advanced med school in Denmark, I think. OH those Danish! So efficient and so very smart too!

We finish our interview and the teacher begins calling out names to present. I smile as my name is called and stand proudly to announce my new neighbor. I got this in the baaaag. My very first words to the class, I am ready to make an animated and friendly first impression...

"I present to you....JONAS! (I gesture grandly to him). Jonas is a DOCTOR from DRESDEN, DENMARK!"
Silence. Blink. Blink. Something is clearly wrong as I look around at the puzzled faces. My teacher asks me to repeat, please?
"Jonas is uh.....a doctor....from.....Dresden...Denmark...he is Danish..." Jonas taps my leg and quietly and politely informs me he is actually a physicist from Germany. I feel the blood drain as I search wildly for something to say, in French, something...ANYTHING to save me from this horrible display of inadequacy. I try and muster my shattered self confidence.
"Ha....ha...uh...just now...what FUNNY! I think he say Denmark....I hear Dresden...what JOKE...ha...ha...it is reason I am here!"
Silence.
I awkwardly sit down and concentrate on making my face turn back to white from purple. I can't even look at Jonas, the physicist from Germany. Or the rest of class for that matter. I pray someone else will make a similar mistake..."Maria is a FISHERMAN from CANADA!"...."Antonio is an ASTRONAUT from KOREA!"....aaaanything.
But no one does.

ACT II
LATHER UP
I have been searching for a good lotion for my winter dry skin. After carefully scouring the shelves at the pharmacy, I see a picture of a baby on a giant jumbo size bottle. OH! BABY lotion, perfect! After slathering this on my body every night for two weeks, I notice my skin is getting progressively red and bumpy, I frequently wake up in the night itching and I am developing some sort of skin condition on my feet. I take a closer look at the bottle again and realize there is actually an English translation on the back.
Baby soap.
It's soap.
I have been slathering myself in soap for two weeks wondering why I am itching and why my morning showers are particularly frothy.
It's because it is SOAP.
Not lotion.
SOAP.

EPILOGUE
I made some Vietnamese food yesterday. Chopping the hot pepper for the sauce, my nose itched and while scratching it, I accidentally shoved a bunch of hot pepper seeds up my nose. The fiery burning quickly spread from my nose to my throat and I spent the next hour making "freaked out cat with a fur ball stuck in throat" gagging sounds, praying to god that the neighbors weren't home.
HECCCCH.....CCCCHHHHH.....ACCCCCCCCHHHHHH.......CCCHHHHHHHHH......WUCHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Just trucking along, as usual.
Sigh.

FRENCH BOY

It has arrived. My dance pop music video homage to French boys....

In the middle of making my album, I got tired of producing sad songs so one night on a lark, I wrote a dance song as a joke called French Boy. An homage to my inner francophile. I played it for Jeff Byrd, my co-producer and he flipped out. Said we had to produce the track. I sighed, said "but it's just a JOKE" song...he persisted so we made a rough cut of the song. My filmmaker friend Corey Tatarczuk heard the track and flipped out. Said we had to make a dance video. So we started working on the storylines. Ninjas! Breakdancing! Girl fight! First thing we needed....some real live French boys. I convinced FB and his friend they had to star in it by telling them all they had to do was walk around all day smoking and looking French. It quickly spiraled into a three day 12 person crew shoot at Princeton University and Institute For Advanced Studies (Einstein's academic home). The result is my most favorite video, shot with the help of my friends and forever ingrained in my head as "that magical weekend".

This is for all you French boys out there.
This American girl totally loves you.

CE SOIR CE SOIR

Come rock it with me if you're in Paris tonight.
21h00.
Toi et moi. XO Dana

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PIG - PART TWO

Once the morning of slaughtering the pig was over, I returned after lunch to a small stone room to watch the farmers make Boudin Noir (black sausage/blood sausage). As I entered, I was a bit startled to see the head, lungs, heart and what I thought at first was some sort of cool kerchief but instead turned out to be the stomach lining hanging from the pig's head from the ceiling.


I learned that every bit of the pig is used, absolutely nothing gets wasted. The lungs are fed to the dogs, the head is used to make fromage de tete (head cheese), and the blood (with onions and herbs) is used to make Boudin Noir. The two women funneled the filling into the casings, their hands a blur a movement. The old woman here was so animated and so kind, I could not take my eyes off her as she is one of those old people whose young self shines brightly through all the wrinkles. The way she moved and especially the way she laughed, I kept glancing back at her thinking I had just seen her transform into a 20 year old girl.





After the links are all filled, they piled them onto an old sheet and lowered it into a round fourneau (like a cauldron), tied it shut and put a brick on top. The Boudin Noir then cook for thirty minutes. The smoke coming out of the pot made the whole room magical and I kept getting confused what century exactly I was in.





After the Boudin Noir was taken out of the fourneau, I was brought to another room to see the carcass, ready and splayed out for the butcher to come. The old woman taught me what every part of the pig is called. Then the butcher showed me how to cut up the whole pig. I have to say, that part was AWWWWWWWESOME. It made me rethink butchery as a possible career choice.







And last but not least...dinner.



As I sat down to eat the Boudin Noir, I couldn't help but be amazed that in 10 hours, I saw the pig go from alive to cooked on my plate for dinner. Call me naive, suburban, etc. but I just never grew up with the notion that what you eat EVER resembles an animal. I feel grateful for the chance to have witnessed the process of slaughtering an animal so that I may eat it. I walked away from the experience with a new perspective on what it really means to eat an animal. While it did not turn me into a vegetarian, I have a new awareness and a new resolve to only eat organic meat.

Once again, thank you France for opening my eyes.
And thank you, pig.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PIG - PART ONE

PREFACE
Friday January 30...
As the train left Paris behind and dipped into the countryside, I felt my stomach flutter with nerves over what I would be witnessing the next day. The pig slaughter. Now that I had no one to whom I could announce my lofty reasons, the idea was quickly losing its charm. What was I getting myself into? Because I have no reference for a slaughter and an extremely overactive imagination, I settled into my seat and for two hours dreamed up horror film after horror film starring zombie pig bloodbaths. Zombie pigs eat the horses. Zombie pigs kill the farmer. Zombie pigs stampede towards Paris.

I am shaken out of my Amityville Horror by the arrival in Bourgogne. There is something about the hills, the air, the sounds and smells that makes me feel calm each time I go there. I start to think that maybe I could actually pretend to be cool with the country life, at least enough to not barf. Or cry. It's a start. At 10PM, I embrace farm time and go to sleep in my dark little room with surprisingly no bad dreams.

Saturday, February 1...
I am woken up at 8AM by the sounds of the cows next door. I think maybe they are talking about their pig friend who is about to get the axe. Then I wonder if the pig knows. I have read they are really smart animals and I wonder if it has a sense that something awful is about to happen to it. Then I wonder if I will know the day I die that I am going to die. OK this is quickly spiraling so I decide this is not a good foot on which to start the day off. I get back in bed and do a do-over, stretching calmly and force-thinking about what a wonderfully interesting day this will be. After breakfast, the farmer from next door calls and says they are ready. "OK Dana, let's go barf up some coffee and bread" I think to myself as we walk next door....


The pig.
It was already screaming wildly when we arrived, clearly not happy with the current situation. The other animals around the area were clearly agitated as well. I had about 60 seconds tops to really look at it before one of the farmers took a sledgehammer and brought it down on the pig's head between the eyes. It was immediately knocked out completely.



The farmer made a swift cut about four inches long in the pick's neck and while the heart was still beating, the blood was caught to later make Boudin Noir (blood sausage). Unlike the oceans of blood I had dreamed up in my head, there were a few bucketfuls. And instead of the panic I had expected, I was simply mesmerized by the slaughter. A deep sense of respect and sorrow for this animal overcame me. To cry or to throw up suddenly seemed disrespectful. And I didn't feel sick, I just felt curious and sad. (I have posted a series of photos HERE if you would like to see the whole process).

It took almost 30 minutes for that pig to stop moving completely, during which it's screams got more and more faint and then finally, silence. As I watched with intense sadness as the force of life left this animal, I quietly thanked it for it's meat. After what seemed an eternity, it at last stopped breathing and the other animals in the area quieted down. I wondered if any of them would remember this moment.



The hair is then burned and scraped off with blunt knives. The pig is cleaned and lifted onto table where it will be cut open and disemboweled. This whole process was done so deftly and swiftly by the farmers that I suddenly felt idiotic in my Jessica Simpson coat and my stylish hat. I spend my days complaining about WHAT exactly? A pig just died so you can eat it. Bacon doesn't grow on trees. These people are living off the land and I'm upset I can't get good sushi delivered?
I tell myself silently to go jump off a bridge.
Seriously.

PIG SLAUGHTER WEEKEND GETAWAY

FB: "Oh, by the way, my Mom wants to know if you want to go to a pig slaughter next weekend."
ME: ".........a what?"
FB: "A pig slaughter. In Burgundy. You wanna go?"
ME: "......." (lost in images of Charlotte's Web meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
FB: "Hello?"
ME: "Uh.....sooooo....like, the invite is to go watch a pig get butchered? With like, a knife? Is it like...alive?"
FB: "Yes, of course it's alive, then it gets slaughtered. Then it's dead. Then you butcher it."
ME: "Right. Of course. My college degree in Theater covered that. Wow. OK. Well, sure, I'll go...I mean when was the last time I got invited to a slaughter? I should get out more anyway."

Each year my French in-laws buy a pig from the farm next door and help slaughter and butcher it. We ate last year's pig for months, every time we visited we would walk away with a bag of meat. So I decided to go this weekend. For a week I have been professing my noble reasons for wanting to become one with the animal before I eat it, for wanting to witness where my meat comes from. If I am to eat it, then I must bear witness and thank it for it's meat. Become at peace with the food chain, blah blah blah.
My Greek accordionist friend who grew up with many farm animals asked me today after I told him where I was going and after spouting my lofty city/fake hippie girl "gets" the country life reasons.....

GA: "So, have you ever seen an animal killed before?"
ME: "Wulll....not really....I guess...(desperately searching for any moment in my New Jersey suburban childhood that might include an animal slaughter)...hmmm.....no. I guess never."
GA: "I have to tell you, with a pig, it can be quite brutal, especially the squealing, it's very human and you may be traumatized. And there is a LOT of blood."
ME: "But....like, I just like, want to...(images of knives)...you know...(sounds of humanlike pig squealing)....SEE what I'm eating (bloody carnage images).....and....uh....you know....(trails off)....become....one...with...stuff?"

I'm still going. Tomorrow morning I set out solo on a train to watch Wilbur's throat get cut and chopped into pieces. Just a weekend getaway with my French in-laws, the farmers, a pig and one possibly vomiting, crying city girl traumatized for the next six years. I may return on Monday a vegetarian. Or more likely strapped to a gurney, frothing at the mouth, eyes bugging out of my head while I scream uncontrollably "IT WAS ALIIIIIIVE, IT WAS ALIIIIIIIIIVE, IT WAS ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!!"
Gulp.

Bon weekend.
Party on.

xx

YOU HAVE MORE GUT.

My Savate teacher told me point blank I am fat today.
In front of the whole class.
The class where I stand in the front row.
The class where I am the only girl.
Right before he started the warm up he looked at me, grabbed his own gut and said "I see you have more...somethingsomethingIcouldn'tunderstand". I suddenly felt five pairs of eyes behind me boring into the back of my apparently GIANT ASS. I almost choked but managed to laugh it off with a "hahaha oui....hahaha....oui".
hahaha yes...hahaha yes?
THAT'S my best comeback?!

OK, so I have kind of sort of been in denial that eating up to two galettes a day mixed with giant bowls of pasta at 11PM for weeks would have any physical effect on me whatsoever. And OK, so I have kind of sort of noticed that this past week my pants got like, kind of sort of really tight. Even my purple fat pants which were dug out of obscurity a few days ago. Then yesterday I rolled over in bed and I felt my stomach kind of sort of roll slightly AFTER the rest of me rolled over and I thought "hmmm, that's interesting". But a public humiliation seems to me a kind of sort of I don't know, HARSH way to break someone out of their denial.

I am taller than any of the French dudes in my class. And now, apparently, I am also wider. Throughout the warm up, my anger at my teacher, galettes, French dudes, French language, everything started to boil as I angrily double timed my sit ups like a crazy person, steam shooting from my ears. They were all talking about Obama and didn't even look at me and I couldn't understand what they were saying about him or the US and that made my rage even MORE palpable.

Here you all are talking about MY country and all any of you has to say to me is I AM FAT?!#$%@! Well, guess what, mofos? I AM fat and America frickin' RULES and so does BUTTER and FU if you think me and my cake rolls are gonna let this one slide by like bacon on my back fat.
Game ON.

While the French dudes leisurely made their way through sit ups, talking the whole time and pausing every so often to have more animated discussions I couldn't follow about the US and Obama, I stopped caring about understanding and tuned them out, pretended I was in the Marines and ripped through warm up like I was going for drill sergeant. As soon as warm up ended, adrenalin pumping and game face on, I sprinted to the locker room, pulled my gloves on, body slammed the heavy hanging bag twice on my way out and happily stepped onto the floor to work with my teacher.....

BAM!
Yes.
BAM!
We.
BAM!
Can.

I hit him so hard at one point his contact flew out. But he seemed to really enjoy it and the harder I hit, the more he smiled and the more enraged I got so the harder I hit and the more he smiled and so on and so on. Towards the end of class I nailed a series of head kicks that sent him across the floor. As I bounced back across the room with my gloves up, I realized the class was silent. I looked up and saw five sets of eyes silently staring at me.
Breathing heavily, I stare back.
What are YOU lookin' at?
I notice no one is sweating.
Silence.
Sweat drips off my brow and falls to the floor.
Silence.
"Wusses", I think.
My teacher breaks the silence with "I think that's enough for today." Enough for who? My rage workouts last waaaaaay longer than just an hour, Teach. I wipe the sweat off, do 45 more minutes of weights in the weight room, grab my bag, put my best and brightest red lipstick on and roll myself right on out the door.
You mess with the bull, you're gonna get the horns, son.

AU REVOIR & BONJOUR, MR. PRESIDENT

A friend sent me a live clip from my smash hit/standing room only/reduced the crowd to tears but brought them back with peals of laughter/three encores/four people fainted/medics/fireworks stage show the other night.

The clip is my butchered French intro to what recently became my "George Bush" song titled "The Monster". Originally written about corporate America and performed with my former band Stupid, it has since become my homage to George Bush and is my instant crowd pleaser song here in Paris. I dedicated it to Mr. Bush for the last time at a show last night and it made me a little sad. But it's ok, I can just go back to railing on corporations. As the video clip my friend sent of the show cut off right after the intro, I thought I would add the original recording of the song. But I couldn't figure out how to just post an audio file, so I got all fired up and decided to make what could best be described as WORST MUSIC VIDEO EVER MADE BY ATTEMPTING TO GET POLITICAL WHILE MAKING OBVIOUS STATEMENTS AND ASSOCIATIONS USING SHITTY INTERNET PICTURES AND CHEAP GRAPHIC TRICKS WITH IMOVIE.

But the song is there. :)



Au revoir, George Bush. Bonjour, Barack Obama. I may be in Paris but I can feel the hope and excitement from here on this historic day. Cautiously optimistic......

ODE TO LES MUSICIANS

The feature film I just scored premiered this weekend at Slamdance Film Festival. It is called Drool and stars Laura Harring from Mulholland Drive (you know, the hot brunette who makes out with Naomi Watts).

I am really happy how the score came together and had a hectic yet amazing time recording over a month with my New York posse.....

Jeff Byrd - engineer extraordinaire and my partner in crime.

Matt Bixby
I went to his studio twice where he proceeded to do what he does best....ideas. "Matt, play me something like, plucky, not loud, not too sad but a little tense".
I walked away with 36 tracks. He will never ever play the same thing twice which means my engineering skills had to be on "A game" cause if I didn't get it the first time...well, just forget it.


Benjamin Hoyumpa I know he's a little young but hey....(this is actually Parker Hoyumpa, son of best drummer ever, Ben. The one with the camera). He knocked out 9 songs in 3 hours. It ruled.


Liam Carey I was so happy to work with Liam again who added his beautiful voice, guitar playing and amazing harmonic ear to several songs.

Chern Hwei Fung
Came up with five part harmonies off the top of his head in single takes. Seriously.

I love finishing projects....


Merci mon posse. I'll be back for the next one....

LE SHOW

I am particularly excited about tomorrow night's concert because...

a. It is my first show at a venue where I don't have to worry about my levels of loudness, aka my levels of ROCKNESS
b. I am playing with two French singers who I really like
c. I haven't rocked it outside of a studio in three months, I'm like a crack addict about to get her fix.

I play at 10PM, 22h00 and it's free free free.....lalala....
xoxo Dana

THE WORLD IS MINE

Having lost the throne, I went on an all out galette bender. For three days I ate an almost exclusive diet of galettes. By myself. One by one. Piece by piece. Picking out prizes, shoving the rest of the cake in my mouth and adding another crown to my ever-growing pile.

I'm not sure if it's the horrific gas or the 10 lbs. I gained from eating an exclusive diet of butter and sugar but somehow, none of the new galettes made me feel any better. Though I technically already gained my kingdom back by winning (albeit against myself) 11 times over, I couldn't forget the one that got away. The one I couldn't cheat my way into. Somehow I just...didn't feel like a king anymore....or queen for that matter. All I felt like was a big fat buttery nobody.

So I decided to go search out the wisdom of previous kings. What better place to go king soul searching than the Basilique Saint-Denis, the mother of all resting places for French royalty?


Situated in a suburb of Paris, it was there that I found peoples who could really relate to my plight. Dead peoples who knew my pain. Dead peoples who had BEEN there. I walked between the tombs and crypts of French kings and queens and sat meditating quietly. I'm not sure if it was the blistering wind drafts but something hit me right then and there among the dead monarchy and I gained a sudden clarity.

It doesn't matter HOW you gain control, what matters is that you HAVE control.

So I lost my kingdom for one night? So what? I got it back 11 more times and it doesn't MATTER that no one else was playing! I am still the KING and I have 14 crowns to prove it! What would Napoleon do? Duh! Smash the crown, call yourself EMPEROR and call it a day!

I got back on my horse the very next day for a visit to the American Legion Post #1. My father (an American Legion member) was in town visiting and we decided to check out their New Year's get together where they would be serving.....that's right....galette.

Guess who got the prize?
Crown # 15. M.I.N.E.


It's not as nice as Louis XV's....but it's MIIIIIIIIIINE. The galette craze ends this week as the bakeries one by one stop selling them. Until next year my little almond butter ones....

REVOLUTION

My reign of galette terror ended last night abruptly and left me with a hole in my heart and anger in my soul for what could have been, what SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE. My strategy of hording the galette and systematically fishing out the prize for myself was brought to an end when we had one of FB's French friends over for champagne and galette. Not wanting to reveal my Napoleon side right off the bat, I stood in the kitchen quickly trying to scheme a way to get the prize. I decided my best bet would be to cut the galette into four pieces, give myself the biggest piece and leave a piece in the kitchen (as every one I have eaten so far had the prize in the last piece). Smiling at my ingenuity, I confidently brought out the three plates:

FB #2: Wait, you can't just serve up the pieces you want.
FB #1: And why did you only cut three pieces out?
FB #2: You just cut THREE pieces? Where's the last piece?
FB #1: Yeah, where's the last piece!? Are you hiding it in the kitchen? You can't do that either!
FB #2: And why is your piece enormous??? No way. We're redoing this.

Damnit.
OK, so these guys are harder to play out than I had expected.
Fine.

FB #2 hides his eyes and as I point to a piece of galette, he says who the piece will belong to. I hate this game. This is stupid and I don't want to play anymore. I wolf down my piece and find it prizeless. I try and hide my scorn as I watch them slowly eat their pieces. Why should THEY win the prize when I CLEARLY want and DESERVE it the most??? My mood lightens when I see that they too....are PRIZELESS. The prize is still out there. In the kitchen. In the last piece. And it will be MINE.

"Oh! I have a GREAT idea!" I say as I run into the kitchen and quickly devise another scheme. I will feel out where the prize is, put all the pieces under three bowls and put the prize one under the bowl with a mark on it.
Suckas. They don't stand a CHANCE! Hahahahahahaha

I bring the bowls out and start the switcheroo. Switch. Switch. Switch. But in my delusions of grandeur, I somehow manage to forget the most important step, the step I have to do for this to actually work....I MUST go first but FB #1 is already choosing a bowl. MY BOWL. The one with the mark! Waaaaaiiit.....nooooooooooo! I can't show what a lying, cheating immature grade schooler I really am. At least not in front of a guest. In my mind, Napoleon is dying as I reluctantly hand over the winning piece to him with a tight smile "Here you go. Good luck."

My insides turn over as I watch him find the prize and happily announce that my reign is now officially OVER and could I run and fetch the crown for him please? I can't believe I let it go so easily. Napoleon would have NEVER made such a stupid mistake! But there is always tomorrow.....

REIGN OF TERROR

It's Epiphany time here in Paris which means the boulangeries all carry my most favorite cake ever made on the planet...past, present and future. The galette des rois, aka kings' cake. The most delightfully deliciously almondy, buttery piece of heavenly AWESOMENESS I have ever tasted. My epiphany this year is that I need to replace as many meals as possible with galettes, to be the best I can be, to eat as many as I can and most importantly, to win the prize every time.
BRING IT.

Each galette comes with a crown. There is a little trinket baked in each cake and whoever gets the trinket is crowned king. My reign of terror began last night when I systematically sliced and ate my way through an entire galette for six people in one sitting. In the last piece was the snowman trinket. YOU ARE MINE, LITTLE MAN for I am now crowned KIIIIIIING, mwahahahahaha! I wore my crown to bed and repeated my assault this morning on another galette for four people, this time no knife, just chomping my way to the little panda bear trinket on the other side. YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE, ENDANGERED ONE!
Victory is mine again. DOUBLE KING!
I shall save my crown for an heir.

This is super easy holding down my iron fist reign of terror, just don't let anyone else near the cake(s). FB asked me where the galettes went.....I told him I didn't know.

Off to the boulangerie to try my hand at a galette for ten people....

SON OF FIVE & A HALF

These are the shoes that launched a thousand ships.

When I lived in New York, I basically had half my apartment stored in the hallway outside my front door. Everything from the air conditioner to a broken vacuum cleaner, seven trash bags filled with clothes, wire desk organizers, plates, two bathroom gift sets and a pair of crusty pajamas that sat on top of the pile for approximately three years. No one ever said anything. Why would they? No one cared that the fire escape was perpetually blocked by the sports nut next door neighbor's giant duffle bags of sweaty gym clothes and various baseball bat collections. No one cared that the painter downstairs would consistently drag his giant canvases into the tiny, unventilated hallway and proceed to spray them down with toxic paint fumes, then leave them there for weeks, sometimes months on end. No one moved a muscle to clean up the dead mouse on the second floor. Or to remove the plaster chunks when the ceiling caved in....again. The only thing you had to "worry" about was your piles of shit outside your apartment getting stolen when the crack addict on the 1st floor quit N.A. and went back to using. My rollerblades (used once) disappeared around then. I think I finally noticed the following year. 'Cause no one cared.
The least of all....me.

But now I live in a fancy building in France. Where seemingly everyone cares. Deeply. Emotionally. About EXACTLY what I choose to leave in the hallway outside my front door. Fortunately for me, I am the foreigner in the building whose wide smile and frequent, terribly improper tendency of using the familiar CA VA?!!?? (and way too loud) with everyone I see has...

a. rendered me so dimwitted I am not to be spoken to EVER
b. rendered me so frightening and so toxic I am not to be looked in the eye or have my presence acknowledged IN ANY WAY unless I am with the French husband
c. all of the above

The only one in the building who actually speaks to me is the concierge from Portugal. She's down with me 'cause I'm a foreigner like her and I keep asking her to teach me how to say her dog's name with the right Portugese accent. She had a conversation with FB while I was in New York about the "shoes situation" by our front door. Evidently, it has caused quite the stir in the building. This came as a surprise to me as we live on the top floor in an isolated hallway with no neighbors. No one has any cause to walk by our apartment unless they come up to look for something. I suddenly got the vision of the snoopy old rich ladies who live here coming up to rubberneck the foreigner with her foreigner ways, finding my well worn sneakers and recoiling in horror before running down to complain to the concierge.
It seems someone, or someONES.....care.
WHO, I wonder, WHO are the shoes actually bothering???
So naturally, we just left the shoes there.
Like shark bait. Waiting and wondering if they would come ask us directly while my suspicions about the identities of real complainers began to form....

FIVE AND A HALF, the REAL cuplrit.
We live on the sixth floor but technically it is the seventh floor because the apartment below us is on a half floor. It has a little half front door and it is the only apartment where I have never seen the woman who lives there. I know she is there all the time because I can hear her below me all day. I have seen the woman in FIVE peeking through a crack her door to stare at me as I come up the steps but FIVE AND A HALF has remained an unsolved mystery until....

ENTER SON OF FIVE AND A HALF
About a month ago, I was home alone when the doorbell rang. I froze in my usual terror before tiptoeing to the door and sheepishly answering. It was a man of about 45 years old and he asked for Veronique. I told him "Veronique for it has been six months moves and now I live here with my husband". He told me he was the son of the Madame who lives below me and asked to use my phone because she does not answer when he knocks on her door and he forgot his phone. I asked him to wait there, shut the door, returned and brought him my cell phone. He asked to use my home phone claiming it was cheaper but I insisted he use my cell phone in the hallway. He made his call, left and I thought nothing of it UNTIL.....

NEW YEAR'S EVE 9PM
I am in the kitchen preparing food for our friends who are coming over. FB opens our front door as he thought he heard someone outside and who is standing there? None other than SON OF FIVE AND A HALF. Again. But this time, he is just standing there. He seems taken by surprise but then proceeds to complain to FB about the "shoe situation", how it is REALLY out of control now and that this space is common space and it REALLY needs to be taken care of. And that we should watch out because things outside the apartment can get stolen. I'm sorry, is that a veiled threat in there? Dude, I dealt with a crack addict, SON OF FIVE AND A HALF doesn't scare me in the slightest. Go ahead, steal my shoes. I have six more pair exactly like them. And don't MAKE me go get an air conditioner for the hallway too, pal. I could have six plastic bags of crap out here faster than you can say GIVE ME THE MOTHERFUCKING ROLLERBLADES, I NEED SOME SMACK.
Whatevs.

As our friends arrived at just that moment and filed past SOFH loudly with flowers and champagne, I had to wonder...why on earth did you feel the need to bring this up on New Year's Eve of all nights and more importantly...WHO SENT YOU??!!
WHO. IS. FIVE AND A HALF?!!
And how can she HATE MY SHOES when she NEVER comes OUT???!!

I moved the shoes inside today after realizing I had spent waaaay too much time on this and in the end, I didn't really care all thaaaaaat much. I grabbed my shopping cart, walked down the 7 flights of stairs, staring at the mysterious half door as I passed five and a half. As I walked through the courtyard, I felt someone staring at me. I quickly turned around and looked up directly at five and a half just in time to see the curtain rustle and move back into place. I stood there in the snow for a moment before smiling and waving.

FIVE AND A HALF.....who AAAAARE you?
The mystery continues......

THE CONCIERGE HATES ME

FB: "The concierge hates me."
ME: "What? No way."
FB: "Seriously. She hates my guts."
ME: "You're paranoid, I'm sure she doesn't HATE you. Why would she HATE you?"
FB: "I don't know, but she does."
ME: "Are you kidding me? I just saw her today and she was nothing but nice to me as always! Asked how my trip was, said you must have missed me, we talked about her dog and Christmas....."
FB: "Of course she likes you, you're foreign and you brought her cookies. She tells me what she REALLY thinks though."

Evidently, while I was away the concierge told him to get the shoes and all the other crap we keep in the hallway out and please make it look prettier. Evidently, while I was away there was a certain incident involving a certain armoire that we failed to measure before purchasing that resulted in some heated words with the aforementioned concierge. The armoire ended up denting several walls, sitting downstairs for three days before being loudly sawed apart in the courtyard, hauled back up the six flights and put back together again (I have new-found respect for FB's woodworking skills fyi).

But still, I had trouble actually believing that the very sweet, always smiling and asking how I am concierge was truly capable of HATING anyone.

That is, until yesterday morning when we walked out of the building together. She tried to avoid our eyes but I was persistent and walked past her with a cheery "Bonjour!" She turned, gave me a quick a smile before shooting dagger eyes into FB's skull.

ME: "Oh my god. You're right. Dude. She hates your frickin' GUTS!"
FB: "Told you so."
ME: "Wow. So uh, what are we supposed to get her for Christmas?"
FB: "I don't know, what do usually get someone who wishes you would drop dead?"

Hmmmm.....

THE LOST MONTH

I've been in New York for the past few weeks doing the music for two film scores and shoving my face full of bagels, pizza and Mexican food. I heart U Brooklyn. Every time I come back here, my Parisian reality fades into the background as I understand everything people say, I catch up with good friends and I eat myself across the borough.

But I do miss Paris.
I'll be back in a week, retarded as ever.....

:)

Dana

BLOOD, SWEAT, BUT NO TEARS

I had to get some blood work done today. My fear level of blood tests is somewhere in between having my eyes stabbed with forks and my arms sawed off. While I have absolutely no fear of the dentist (one dentist told me I was his first patient to actually go to sleep during a root canal), I had some bad experiences with blood tests and IVs as a child that have left me with a sheer terror of anything having to do with needles in my arms. Even though I always eat beforehand, I bring my own "fainting kit" of juice boxes and cookies for the inevitable pass out.

I woke up today and my stomach sank as I realized not ONLY would I be getting blood tests done...but I would be going ALONE and having to deal with the whole process in Frrrrrrrench.

Gulp.
Ok.
Pack extra juice box.

I was recommended to go a CEF lab in the 14th arrondissement. I walked in, took a number and was immediately called to one of the secretariat desks.

S: JDFKSDVKDJFBVKDFV JDSV JHV JFDSVBJDVHD?
ME: (Silent. Deer eyes.)
S: JDFKSDVKDJFBVKDFV JDSV JHV JFDSVBJDVHD?
ME: (Cricket sounds. Big deer eyes.)

SNAP OUT OF IT! You have been here almost a YEAR. Just LISTEN to what she is SAYING. Listen CAREFULLY instead of just flipping OUT all the time. My GOD, what is WRONG with you!????!?!!!!

ME: Uh....peut etre un peu plus lentement? (maybe a little slower?)

I have to tell you, as she proceeded to raise her volume level to 11 and slowed it down to a mere crawl, I could actually understand her and we got through all the paperwork and information without much of a problem. I now know that yelling at a foreigner really slowly DOES actually make it easier to understand. I used to find this offensive in NY when I'd hear someone yelling at a stranger but I'm 100% DOWN with it now. I wish all of France would yell at me really slowly. With hand gestures.

WHAAAAAT IIIIISSSSS YOOOOOOUR MAAAAAAIIIIIIIIDEN NAAAAAAAAAAAME????!!!!!!!
HOOOOOW WILL YOOOOOU BE PAAAAAAAAYING TODAAAAAAAAY?!!!???!!!!

She gave me a gold colored token and about 65 pieces of paper so I wandered down the hall she had pointed at wondering where to go and what this token was for. Is it for the toilet? Is there a prize? A technician spotted me coming and guided me into one of the saw my arms off/torture rooms. I told her my French was bad and that I have fear. She was very nice, I looked away as she took the needles out, breathed deep breathes and tried to picture the ocean. Sometimes I am able to go to my special place where no one can touch me but today was not one of those days as when I imagined the ocean, I just saw Coney Island with needles all over the beach. OK, forget that.....moving on...California, California, California...you used to live there....picture the beach, the biiiiig beautiful beach....briiiight blue waves....wait what is that in the water? Oh look, it's a school of needlefish jumping into floating arms in the blood red stained waves where sharks have just torn the arms off all the swimmers and everyone is screaming....

OK STOOOOOOP IT!!! And then I feel the old familiar....arms and legs go numb, heart racing, profuse sweating, stars in eyes, ringing in ears...NONONONONONO... you will NOT pass out in a foreign country...NO WAY....pull it TOGETHER NOOOOOOOOOOW.....(trails off)

And
scene.

Pass out.

I wake up and the technician is asking me if I am OK. "Uh...Je ne sens pas tres bien..." She tells me she is going to get me a café which cracks me up as I reach for my fainting emergency juice box kit. Is coffee the French answer to all ailments? And more importantly, does it work? I drink both juice and coffee as she tells me to sit quiet for two minutes. I feel better after five minutes or so, pack my bags and put on my coat to leave. She comes back in and asks me where I am going.
"I'm leaving."
"No no, you have to do the second series of blood tests still."

WHAT?

I'm only HALFWAY done? I hear the waves crashing on Needle Beach already as I mumble "uh...ok" and sink back down into the torture chair.

A second technician comes in, this time a guy with Converse sneakers and punk rock hair. I tell him of my previous pass out (actually all I managed was "I fell down when she takes the blood"), we chat a bit (all French), he finds out I am musician from NY and he starts talking to me about every punk band he knows from there. He's never been to NY and wants to go badly, he learned English from listening to lots of American music. As we sit discussing the genius of Sonic Youth, I don't even notice the needle is already out of my arm and I am finished with series number two. Whoa. I thank him profusely, he says he will myspace me and suggests the next time I just talk about music when I get blood tests.

I'm asking for THAT guy next time.

:) Peace out.

OUTTA MY WAY

I quit smoking again. For those of you who know me, feel free to roll your eyes into the back of your head. I know. I am forever known as the girl who is ALWAYS quitting smoking. If only one of these times, I would NOT do the idiotic "oh I can just have one" before hurtling headfirst onto the slip n' slide right back to it....

Day 1 & 2 - Things are OK as long as no one speaks to me or looks at me in any way. My shut in job as a film composer works great for this but am having serious trouble writing a love theme as all I can think about are knives and fire.

Day 3 - a friend's band is playing a punk rock show. I want to murder everyone in sight and am breaking into random fits of crying but I must go to the show. We arrive early and as an hour turns into two, I realize I have not eaten dinner and I am about to lose it. I HAVE to eat. HAVE TO. As in, RIGHT NOW. We are down the street from the Monoprix at Pigalle so I make a beeline from the club to get myself a sandwich or five before I die. As I head up the sidewalk, I see two young guys approaching me and they move to block my way. Are you KIDDING ME? Nothing right now in this world could possibly get in between me and my Monoprix sandwiches. NOTHING. I saw them coming and I think secretly inside I wanted them to mess with me because frankly, I am looking for a reason to go off. As they give me the up and down creepy look and say something in French, I get in the little one's face and yell as loud as I can, "I WILL TAKE A HAMMER TO YOUR FUCKING FAAAACE, UNDERSTAND ME LITTLE MAN????" before pushing through them and continuing my beeline for tasteless ham on white bread with cheese.

They didn't follow.

Yeah yeah, I know the smarter thing would have been to ignore them and cross the street instead as I do time and time again being a girl in a city, but I have to say....
that felt REAAAAAALLY good.

O O O O O!!!!!

I stopped by the small market yesterday and as I checked out, the man behind the counter asked me how I was. "Nervous" I said. "I hope tomorrow I have a new President Obama." There were about 8 people in line behind me who cheered when the woman next to me said, "the whole world does!!!" The magnitude of this election hit me. Yes indeed, the whole world is watching.

From my little apartment in Paris, I sat with baited breath devouring both television and the internet. Internet then television. As night descended and state by state went blue, I really began to believe that yes, it actually....can happen.

And then it did.

O.B.A.M.A!
I have a huge smile on my face and joy in my heart.
There's a long road of troubles to overcome but after 8 years, I finally have hope for my country again.

America, I really do heart you.

LET'S GO TO THE MOVIES!

In the past month, out the clear blue, I landed two jobs scoring two different films. One feature and one short. They are both due by December and as I made my usual excel spreadsheet to chart out everything, it quickly dawned on me the MASSIVE extent of work I have ahead of me in the next two months. Gulp. In the last week I have been outside my apartment once a day to go grocery shopping and that's it. The rest of the time - morning, noon and night is spent in my home studio, writing, recording and placing music to images. Yesterday I started to feel really really really insane so I went for a quick walk and was actually surprised to hear people speaking French on the sidewalk.
Oh, yeah. I am so holed up I actually forgot I was in Paris.
Whoa.

I love, love, LOVE scoring film. I have already done one feature film and countless songs for television. Adding another story and another life to an image and seeing a magic result gives me a natural high. My favorite film scores are movies by Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coen Brothers, Tim Burton and Gus Van Sant. They all use an eclectic mix of licensed tracks and/or they have genius songwriters like Danny Elfman and Mark Mothersbaugh scoring.

I have no budget to license any popular music for the scores so I am aiming as high as possible (quelle surprise)....can't license big expensive songs? OK, no problem. Just write a ton of songs really fast (in multiple genres, everything from punk to lounge to country) and hire all your musician friends to come together to make it happen. I just LOVE organizing and a movie score brings out the best talents in me. I was flipped out last week about my lack of knowledge of the industry standard recording software, Pro Tools. As in, my usual sobbing on the bathroom floor while giving myself hives sort of freak out. But with some help from my friends (thank you Byrd and Chicky), some online tutorials and something I never seem to have enough of - less tears and more patience, I am working my way along just fine.

I might not be posting a whole lot (especially about Paris considering I forgot I live here but hey, it sounds mysterious for the movie...film scored in Paris, ooh lala) until these two projects are finished, but I'll be around, looking at the world through music colored glasses and figuring out if country music or a punk song would fit best. I was in the shower the other day and had an idea for my next business venture - write personal theme songs for people. Wouldn't YOU want a theme song of your own to play each time you feel down? (Or I could customize it and if you are feeling too up, something to bring you down, WAY down)

"OH DANA, SOAR WITH THE EEEEEEEAGLES! YOU ARE ON FIIIIIIIRE!!" (insert squealing guitars)
OR
"Oh Dana....everything is daaaaaark in your wooooorld..." (insert organ dirge)

I'd have an initial consultation with a list of questions......

1. In what ways do you rock? Be specific.
2. In what situations do you most feel your rockness?
3. What kind of music makes you feel fired up? As in, MAN do I ROCK!
All genres welcome.

They would make wonderful birthday/anniversary gifts or stocking stuffers.
Oh the ideas, they are a flowin' these days. :)